Tag Archive: tourist

Nothing left but to say goodbye

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Thu. June 12, 2008

I’m sitting here in a suddenly spacious apartment. It’s funny how the second mattress made everything seem so cramped. Now that I see it like this though, there’s definitely enough room here for one person. It’s still small, but at least the guy has some breathing room.

My bags are packed: backpack, gym bag, luggage. I looked outside the balcony door and it seems to be raining. I’m praying that the rain will ease up as I lug everything to the station. Otherwise, it’s going to be a miserable march over to Uguisudani.

Seriously, I’m in disbelief that this whirlwind vacation is at an end. In these 12 days here, I’ve crammed so much in that it makes the mind numb. I’ve been to Hakodate, Sapporo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Beppu, Hiroshima, and Kobe and experienced the people through new eyes. In Tokyo, I’ve been to a baseball game, a ninja restaurant, karaoke in Shibuya. God, how hectic! I’ve pushed myself day after day to get out there even though my body cried out for a day of rest. I’ve taken 4-5 hour walks hiking from one end of the city to the other. I’ve spent way too much on food–but as long as I keep in mind that this is a vacation I can at least maintain some of my sanity, you know? I guess you could say that I did my part to stimulate the Japanese economy, yes?

In a few hours I’ll be on a plane headed for home and I’ll once again get to enjoy the comforts that I miss so much. Oh, privacy! How beautiful you are! Don’t get me wrong, I completely appreciate the fact that my friend put up with me for so long. We’ve been at each other’s throats on occasion, but fundamentally we share a lot of the same values and that’s what’s kept us at peace. We helped push each other to do things that we wouldn’t be able to alone. It was a beneficial team-up every step of the way.

I feel that it really is time to go home.

The next 24 hours are going to be long and arduous, and I will be thankful for every minute.

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Blogging about the other days on the tour, as well as my post days in Tokyo will continue :) I’ve still got stories to share.

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Day 6: Beppu

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Wed. June 11, 2008

Why are you here?

Beppu has some of the best hot springs in Japan, but no one ever comes here!

That’s what my friend told me an old man told him as they were on the open air hot spring on the roof of the hotel in Beppu. That just about summarizes our experience in that town.

We left Osaka pretty early. We were on the train really promptly and made our connection. Within hours we were in on the big southern island of Kyushu, and in the resort town of Beppu. DWhen we walked out of the train station there was a table being set up where they were giving out bottles of water and bamboo water guns. I still haven’t tried mine out, but I’m sure it’ll work just nicely. One of the others didn’t want theirs so I took it. I plan on giving it to someone–just don’t know who.

Our first intent for the town was to go and check out the Hells. The Hells are super hot springs that are too hot for bathing. They have these differing physical properties between each one though. Anyway, we got a bus pass from the tourist office and started the windy trek there. Seems like the other two weren’t way too keen on seeing them and really only wanted to see the best of the bunch. Admission to each individual one was only ¥400. In the end though we got a pass for ¥2000 to see all 8. Now, let me say some of them are entirely beautiful. The Umi-Jigoku (I think it was Umi) has steam coming out of vents all over the place. The spring was this beautiful shade of opal blue. That one was worth admission. Some were sort of interesting like the Oniishibozu-Jigoku head one. The springs seemed to have this muddy mineral quality to them. As stuff bubbled up from underneath it looks like some shaved heads are bobbing up from underneath. Almost all of them are picturesque, but some are just kind of boring. Some of them are way too tourist-trap-like and that quality really irked me. To be honest, I question whether paying $20 was worth it. Regardless, I’m alright with having seen the 8. Would I recommend seeing them? Eh…well…some of them. Some of the souvenir shops were selling fans that said in Japanese: “Everyday is hell.” I kind of regret not getting one.

After the Hells we headed back to the hotel and claimed our rooms. We decided to request the Japanese style rooms with low tables, tatami mats, futons on the floor, and paper screens. The door to the room from the hotel hallway is normal–the paper screens separate the inside parts. I’ve never stayed in a Japanese style room before so this was new to me. It was awesome. Though, to be honest, in retrospect I’d probably have enjoyed a Western style room better. Even so, this experience was valuable, you know? I will say though–thank God the room had a Western style toilet and not a squatter. Whoo! The view from the room was interesting. He had a west-facing room with a view of the ocean, the Kyushu hillsides and parts of the city.

After relaxing for a while at the hotel we headed for the Takegawara Onsen. This public bath seemed really old, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually one of the oldest in the city. They’re well known for having this hot sand bath. Basically, after stripping down and putting on a yukata, you lie in a sand pit and some old ladies bury you in the hot sand. As they started to bury me, my immediate first thought was about just how heavy the sand was. Yes, it’s an obvious thought now, but back then you don’t expect to have that much weight on you. As well, damn they weren’t kidding about the sand being hot. The old ladies frequently came by and wiped my forehead down because I was dripping sweat like mad. Atsui desu ne? “It’s hot isn’t it?” All I could do was agree with a long “eeeeeee.” I ended up getting a lot of the attention because of my overactive glands. The sand bath is 10 minutes long, but by the last minute or two I started to think that 10 minutes would never end. I started to feel a bit of mild panic. My thoughts started going crazy. “It’s too hot! I’m going to pass out!” My toes wriggled free for some air. Soon enough though, the ten minutes was up and we were asked to get up. God, that was fun. I washed the sand off and got dressed. We hung out in the main area for a while just cooling off and getting fluids back into our body. It was nice and relaxing.

We had dinner at an izakaya in a covered shopping arcade. The menu was completely in Japanese and heavy with kanji so we relied on my friend to order. There were some surprises. Onion rice? It was just sliced fried onion–no rice. I would gather that tomato rice is actually sliced tomato. He also ordered fried fugu. We were expecting some fried slice or something. When they came in though it seemed like they fried whole fugu. You could still see the face and everything. They obviously removed the poisonous part, but still, how creepy! Being an ocean town, the sashimi was nice and fresh. It was all fun.

Actually, next to our table was a bunch of Japanese university students and what seemed to be their coach. They were celebrating. My friend was watching them egg on this one guy in their group to chug a beer. They noticed him watching, at which point he encouraged the dude to drink up. When they found out that he could speak Japanese they started trying out their non-existent English skills on him. Hilarity ensued.

That was basically my Beppu experience. It was a pretty light day, all things considered. I can say I’ve been to hell!

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Day 1: Hakodate, part 2

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Tue. June 3, 2008

Whoo, I’m in rather good spirits this morning. We had a really good day, but before I get to today’s events, I should finish off yesterday’s stuff.

(Hah-koh-dah-teh)

Prior to visiting the fort, we tried to visit this buffet place in another hotel. We were getting pretty psyched up about it, but when we ventured in we found out that the buffet already closed their lunch service. Haaarsh. It was only after that that we ended up at that out off the way restaurant. We were set though on returning for dinner.

We took a streetcar to get to the fort area. Some of them seemed pretty old. I mean, a few were brown and banged up and looked like thin tin cans.

Now the gift shop at the fort had a lot of Hakodate and Sapporo specific goods. I think the island is known for having bear as a food item of sorts. On the shelves, I spotted cans of bear curry. So yeah, I didn’t mistype that in my last post: I really meant “bear curry.” As much as I’m curious about it and that it might make a fantastic gag gift, I wasn’t in the mood to drag it around the island.

After the fort, we decided to try to walk over to the train station instead of taking the streetcar back. I think we got a little bit lost and wander off of the main roads. I dunno…the place sort of reminded me of small town America in decay. I’m not sure how else to describe it. There was a bus stop named “gas kaisha mae,” or “in front of the gas company.” That’s…kind of funny. Is that representative of Hakodate? To say so wouldn’t be fair. I mean, there are a good number of things to see, but it’s not like the whole city can be spectacular, right?

We did hear though that the city looked quite fantastic from the top of Mt. Hakodate at night. So, late that afternoon we headed for the mountain to see what all the fuss was about. As we approached, fog seemed to be shrouding the summit. The green lights from the ropeway were shining through the fog, making it look like a powerful being of some sort was peering down from the clouds to check out the creation below. It didn’t really occur to us that it would be a problem. So, when we got to the base of the mountain, we purchased ropeway tickets to get to the summit by cable car. As we were a the ticket window, the lady at the ticket window held up a sign saying that the view was being blocked by fog. Well, all things considered what other chance would we have at seeing things? So, we still agreed to go up and purchased the tickets. As we headed up the views of the city were looking more and more spectacular. At one point we thought everything would be OK, but everything changed pretty quickly. Soon we were enveloped in clouds, making it impossible to see the city from the top. Ugh! Yes, what a waste of fare, but still we had to give it a shot. There was no salvaging it though. We took our situation with a lot of humour, but in the end, it still sucked.

To pass the time on the mountain, we started joking loudly in as fake a New York accent as we could manage. I’ve been known for being able to produce a random accents–I just didn’t know that New York was in my arsenal. Some random kid heard our accent and started mimicking it to his friend. Was it to mock? Was it in admiration? Whatever. We wandered into the gift shop to kill even more time. We didn’t really want to buy anything, but we spotted these tiny bottles of pudding. At a price between ¥300 and ¥400, it was expensive pudding, but we my friend and I were joking so often about famous Hokkaido milk that we decided to just have Hokkaido pudding for the hell of it. So yes. I paid a couple of bucks for pudding.

Only in Japan? I guess?

We got tired of waiting and just headed back down the cable car. So sad! We at least figured that we’d get a view of the city as the cable car descended down below the clouds. There was a big crowd in the car and everyone was thinking the same thing. As the car passed the clouds there was aloud audible “waaaah!” from so many in the car. Unfortunately, it was raining and the windows were covered with a sheet of water that obstructed the view. Just wasn’t meant to be.

We eventually got back to the vicinity of our hotel, at which point we went to the restaurant. When we got to the restaurant we found out that it closed at or so. Damn! So what did we do? We went back to our room and started looking around for descriptions or close by hotels. We ended up eating in a restaurant called “Beer.” Hahah. At the time I wasn’t aware of how appropriate that restaurant name was in the context of the island as a whole, but even so, it’s a darn cool name. I had beer to go along with the steak that we ordered. Nothing unexpected for such a restaurant, yeah?

Well, that was Hakodate. Will write about this awesome day in Sapporo next.

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Day 1: Hakodate, part 1

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Mon. June 2, 2008

I guess I’ll try to add some pictures as I go along. I have a bunch sitting here on my camera’s card that I can easily get onto my laptop. Doing so should enhance some of the stories I’m telling, right? Anywho, keep scrolling down every once in a while and you might find some new trip pictures. Just need to get them up–probably not today though because I’ve fallen asleep a couple of times already in the process of writing this thing. Seriously, it’s been a really long day. If I somehow become incoherent you’ll know why.

Day 1: mission accomplished.

I got up at around 6:30 or so to make an 8:02 train from Ueno. I completely over-packed for this leg. We’re only out for about 2.5 days, but my gym bag is already way too heavy. I didn’t bother trying to pick it up when I was stuffing things in it, which was really dumb on my part. I mean, I broke out into profuse sweats as I carried my bag to the station. When I got to Ueno, I had to pause and actually remove my jacket. When I did, my shirt was pretty damn soaked around the shoulders. It was quite embarrassing. It’s not just a Japan thing too. If I came into a train in Toronto looking like someone dropped a bucket of fluid on me I’d be pretty mortified. Anyway JR is pretty serious about their trains leaving on time. The train left on the dot and we were off. I was really excited to be riding the shinkansen, or bullet trains. Within city limits the speed was pretty normal. It wasn’t until we really exited the Tokyo area that things really started speeding up considerably. I fell asleep at one or two points. I had to wake up because the super fast high speed was causing my jaw to ache when it was banking around corners. I dunno, it’s hard to describe. The train had to pass through some really rural areas to get up to the north of Honshu. Upon seeing these areas were were kind of glad to have made the decision to stick to Hokkaido on the northern leg of our tour.

We arrived at about 1 pm. The weather here is several degrees colder than it is in Tokyo. It’s shocking! I loved it–it means less profuse sweating. Our first order of business was finding a place to eat lunch. We ended up eating at a small out of the way restaurant. Most of the people eating there were locals, which is often a good sign that the food is decent. I had a good deep fried pork cutlet set. The sauce was nice and thick–and really unlike any other tonkatsu sauce that I’ve had in other places. It was really awesome. I mean, after that meal I was positive thinking that this whole stop would be awesome.

First attraction stop we had was Fort Goryokaku. It’s a star-shaped fortress that looks pretty amazing from the observation tower next to it. After climbing the tower, we went for a stroll around the fortress itself. You could feel that the place was soaked in history. How many people died there? How were battles fought?

OK…damn, I’m too sleepy to continue. Umm…more on day 1 stuff later on. The update should include:

  • the bus stop named after a gas station
  • streetcars that seemed to have existed from before the war
  • trying to get a view of one of the world’s claimants to the best night views except that mother nature didn’t want to cooperate, and we didn’t listen to the ticket sales people that warned us
  • pudding
  • practising my best New York accent with my friend, and having a shy Japanese kid talk to his buddies about our accent and imitate it
  • being shut out of a restaurant we wanted to be at two times in a row
  • a beer restaurant
  • bear curry

Oh hell. Tall order–lots to write about! Hope I can keep it all together. Sapporo on day 2!

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Restoring my faith in the city

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Sun. June 1, 2008

After my last post or two, it may seem like I’ve lost a bit of faith in Tokyo. Fair enough, you know? I mean, it almost seems like this whole experience is just one insult to foreigners after another, right? It almost seems like all you can do is to just go along with it and not pay too much mind. Well, I have to be fair and say that Japanese people are really friendly. I think any misgivings that arise are really as a result of a few things. First, there’s a great deal of shyness that the locals have when communicating with someone that speaks English. As much they’ve been trained, there’s not much practical time when it comes to putting the language to good use. So, the result is that a lot of people are just plain afraid to try for fear of making a mistake. Frankly, I’m pretty much the same way when I try out my Japanese–I’m painfully shy! I can make the effort, but I’m also hung up on whether I was using polite language, or maybe whether I was using the correct inflections or vocabulary, etc etc. Lately I’ve been getting better at making the effort, but it’s still a struggle.

Anyway, despite all of this it’s easy to fall into a state of dislike for the place if you’re caught off guard. Today I did a few things that really helped me restore my faith in the city. First, thing I did was to find a RC church with and English mass and attend. I found one in Roppongi which makes sense due to it being considered a foreigner hangout. Due to an error in time adjustment instead of arriving half an hour early like I’d wanted, I actually arrived half an hour late. Anyway, despite that I felt quite at home in there. I mean, wow, I’ve never seen so many foreigners gathered in one place in Tokyo–not even in the airport. Seriously, I felt like I was back in Canada. So many of them were Filipinos too. It was mind boggling. I don’t know what happened, but for that mass in particular I was really moved. At the end, they asked people new and visiting to introduce themselves to the congregation. After each introduction there was a round of applause. I got to do my introduction, and wow, that was a good feeling. At the end, the announcer said something to the effect that they were happy to be people’s “spiritual home away from home,” I seriously nearly lost it. I was so deeply affected by it that I needed to take a few moments to regather my thoughts just to not start bawling. It’s so easy to feel isolated and lonely here: that’s why the warm welcome really got to me. After the mass, a parishioner came up to me and asked if I was Filipino in Tagalog. I replied that I was. We had a nice mini-chat after which she wished me a nice stay. I felt so good coming out of that place.

Well, after mass, I had a few hours to kill before my friend became available, so I decided on his suggestion to wander around the city and take in the people and the sites. So that’s what I did. I started wandering around Roppongi. I had intentions of going west over to the Meiji shrine and Harajuku on foot, but I got side-tracked and saw a familiar hospital that I passed by in the 2006 tour. Since it was familiar, I decided to see if I could somehow end up seeing any other familiar places. Somehow made it over to Azabu-Jūban. I think only one reader out there knows the significance of this place :P . Anyway, I bought a Pocari Sweat and drank it on Patio Jūban. Everyone in that district looks so posh! I continued to wander and ended up at Daimon and the area around Shiba Park–both places that I’d seen before. I decided to just keep going and I ended up at district after district. Shinbashi, Ginza, Nihonbashi, Akihabara, Ueno… I was surprised when I got to Ginza. The main artery through the shopping district was closed to cars and only allowed pedestrian traffic. Apparently this only happens on Sundays. Holy crap, why can’t we do that more often in Toronto? Seriously, if Tokyo can do that on what seems to be a major road, why can’t we? It was a popular area–so many people crowded the place. After four hours of straight walking I got tired and ended up stopping at Ueno park. I hit that fatigue point where I just needed to drink something sugary to get my glycogen levels back to normal.

From there, my friend called me to say that he was done with his business and asked me to meet him at Nihonbashi station on the subway. As I was on the subway, I was thinking that on the subway it took only a few minutes to get someplace it took me an hour or two to get from. Crazy. We went over to Yoyogi park and took in a random rave party. Don’t ask me. There was a lot of drunk naked people stumbling openly in daylight. There were kids running around with incense sticks. It’s not normally my scene, but damn, it was interesting to watch the general debauchery. I got a good laugh out of it.

From there, my friend, his friend and I walked all the way back through Roppongi to Azabu-Jūban. That was basically another 45 minute walk–honestly it felt like an eternity. We went there for some really great thin pizza at a place called Savoy. It’s a small place, but damn the food was awesome. The three of us finished off 4 small pizzas–well worth it. From there, we walked from Azabu to Roppongi to get some frozen yogurt.

That’s been my day. I can honestly say that the long walk helped me absorb more of the character of the city. I’m feeling a bit better about being here. It’s like…the city really only reveals its true nuances to those that are willing to explore a bit. All of the walking has wiped me out. I’m going to get a good night’s sleep. I have to be up early tomorrow to start the 7 day tour all over the country. It’s going to be fantastic!

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Tourist advice

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Thu. May 24, 2007

I grabbed a seat in the back of the streetcar, with my mind focused on the sliding window, thankful that I’d be able to feel a cool breeze once the car started moving. A guy with a map sat down next to me. I paid no heed until he asked me a question. It was simple enough. He wanted to know if the streetcar made it to a particular street. I said, “yes, it does,” and thought nothing of it.

Moments later, he asked if he could get to Niagara Falls from there. I did a double-take at that question. Eh? I told him that there was a bus terminal on that street he was asking about and suggested he check there. I told him it would probably take 1-2 hours to get there. He was wondering how long of a walk it would be to get to the terminal. I gave him his options, but felt uneasy giving advice. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I felt obligated to inform him though that Niagara Falls was a different city altogether.

It was obvious that he was a tourist of sorts, with just some second-hand information regarding what someone should see while in Toronto. I mean, sure, Niagara is great to visit, but really only if you’ve got relatives or friends willing to drive you there, know what I mean? There’s lots to see and do in Toronto, really. Just…if you were to ask me, I’d have no idea where to send someone besides the usual tourist trap type places. I’d almost recommend someone to go wander around downtown for a while. Check out the architecture of City Hall! Head to the Eatons Centre! Go up the CN Tower!

etc etc etc etc

Luckily, I think my point got across and he asked how to get to Chinatown. I told him where to get off. As he got up, I wished him luck. Thinking about the guy heading to the Falls without an idea of where he’s going, or what he’s undertaking bothers me. I can rest easy, I guess. And I hope that he can find someone that can give him better information about what to do around here.

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“You look poor!”

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Thu. July 6, 2006

After a tough day in Kamakura, I was happy to just remain in my hotel room and get some rest. I got undressed and just napped for an hour or two. A little while later though, I got an email from a friend asking whether I was free to hang out. If so, I was to give him a call since he was going out for a walk. I thought I might as well take advantage of the chance, so I called him up. Turned out, when I called him he was right in front of my hotel. So, I hurried and put on my least stinky shirt (which were in abundance) and went down to meet him.

It was really interesting walking around town with him. He had been reading a famous Japanese novel about the area we were at, so he decided that we should walk around and follow the same path that the guy in the novel did. So, we walked around going stop to stop. One of those stops was at Sensō-ji, which I’d already been to twice. In front of the temple, we were stopped by on old Japanese guy. At first, it looked like another one of those guys that wanted to practice their English. However, it soon became clear that there were other intentions afoot. You see, my friend is clearly Jewish (or at least Mid-Eastern looking). That played a role in the questions that this guy was asking. He asked us (him) to look up at the temple and asked what we thought. I don’t think we were too clear on exactly what he had us look at. He clarified it for us by asking what we (he) thought of the swastika on the big lantern at the front of the temple. Just for clarification, the swastika is a symbol used is Asia and in particular Buddhist temples long before the symbol picked up a different connotation. Anyway, my friend replied that he thought nothing of it. However, the old guy seemed to persist and say “Oh…so you know everything, yes?” “Yes, I do know everything,” is what he replied. We decided to walk away because the guy was obviously a nutcase. As we walking away, he exclaimed “You look poor!”

Oh the hilarity. See what I mean about fashion? Bah. My friend has been in Japan for so long that we really doesn’t give a shit about it anymore. Anywho, from the temple, we went through the Nakamise and out to the main road. We hiked to the Sumida river, which he explained was the lifeblood of old Edo. It’s a beautiful place to be. He led me around town. Soon enough, we were in Akihabara. Now, in my mind I was so used to Akihabara being only accessible by train. To be honest, I was shocked to see Yodobashi-Akiba. We ended up eating at a curry place around the place. It was pretty awesome–at least, in comparison to the crappy curry I ate at Kamakura that same day.

From there, we had to decide what to do next. Originally, we had a movie in mind. He kind of wanted to see the movie Cars, but he came up with another idea. I think he wanted to make sure I did mostly quintessentially Japanese stuff. So, he suggested heading to an Ōedo Onsen Monogatari. For the unfamiliar, onsens are Japanese public baths. I dunno. People back here were suggesting I go as well. I wouldn’t get any other chance, really. However, a public bath…involves getting naked…in public. I was so conflicted. Part of me wanted to, but I had so many physical issues that wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with, for example, pudginess, scars, etc. It was a tough tough call, but in the end, we ended up going. The place was in Odaiba, so we had to take a train, then a monorail to get there. Well, the place is like an amusement park. Inside, they tried to maintain the feel of old Edo Tokyo. It’s very cool looking. They give you yukatas to wear inside the resort. When you walk in, you kind of feel like you just went into a time warp of sorts. I mean, everyone is dressed in their yukatas and the scenery is very old. When you get to the change rooms, your inhibitions kind of have to drop or else you’re going to go batty. I mean, the moment you walk in it’s like, BAM! Everyone’s fucking naked (Err…I mean, “fucking” in the purely expletive sense–it’s not a big orgy). So, despite some pudginess, battle scars and all, I joined in. They give you two towels: a big one and a small one. You can use the small one to kind of cover up, but really, once you’re there you almost don’t care. Besides, it’s not like I can wrap that shit around my waist comfortably. There were eight or nine different spring you could try out. Each had its own feature. Like, there were hot ones, colder ones, mineralized ones, outdoor ones, etc. Going outside, it was such an odd thing to be sitting naked in the cool breeze–it felt good though. Hahah. I think, the best part of the experience was just hanging out (ha!) with my friend. I was glad that he recommended going to the onsen. It’s a life experience that I can be proud of.

Interestingly, after feeling refreshed, we had to change back into our smelly clothes in order to go home. Boo!

Anyway, that was Tuesday. Thinking about it makes me feel exhausted. Even so, it was all fully worth it.

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Belly of the Big Buddha

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Tue. July 4, 2006

Big day yesterday. My friend insisted I go to Kamakura to take in the culture, so yesterday I took a train out of the city and headed for that place. The town itself is pretty small–then again, most places compared to Tokyo are small. The place is rich in temples and shrines. They dot the map all over the place. I got off the train in North Kamakura and proceeded to follow the crowds. It was easy enough to find the close temples because of the processions of people going from one stop to the next. The temples were absolutely beautiful. I’ll be honest though, if you’ve seen one, it’s almost too easy to say that you’ve seen ‘em all. Of course, it’s not all that true, I mean, each one has its own personality, right?

Upon leaving the second temple I visited, I was passing under some trees from which there were some loud animal noises. I looked up to see what the commotion was, but didn’t find anything. Moments later though, a nut or some sort of hard fruit was dropped on my head. I think some patrons at a nearby restaurant had a nearby giggle.

Anyway, after following the crowds for the second temple, I decided to try finding stuff on my own. I started hiking down this winding road, passing crowds of male junior high students. I crossed over and found myself on a large steep hill. I think that may have been the hill where of which there’s a legend about someone making it so steep that even turtle will fall over. It’s a bloody wonder that I didn’t fall over. After that long trek, I ended up in some residential area. I had no clue where I was going so I continued to follow the paths. There was no one following behind me so I started worrying that I was going nowhere. Ah, but I was wrong. I eventually ended up at Kaizō-ji. It was a small-ish temple with beautiful gardens. When I arrived, there was an old man taking photos of the blossoms. The peace was a total contrast to the noise of the crowds in the other places. I ended up sitting down for a little while, taking in the sights. Actually, I sat because I was bloody exhausted, but whatever. This place was great, but it was no giant Buddha. So, I set off again in the hopes that I’d find some sign that I was on the right track.

I ended up beside the railroad tracks at some point, so I followed them down for a very long period. Out of sheer luck, I ended up finding the Kamakura shopping area. All the walking around made me hungry, so I stopped by a Ma & Pa type place for a cheap place of curry rice. Well…it was crap, but it was cheap. I somehow didn’t feel all too welcome in that place. I hate that feeling. I ended up still being hungry. After more walking, I somehow ended up at Kamakura station. That was far! Before moving on though, I spotted a Baskin Robbins and stopped by for two scoops. They gave me a third one for free. Score!

Well, I searched the station and came across a tourist info booth which had English maps of the area. Chee, that would have been useful from the beginning, you know? I learned from the map that there was a train that headed for the road leading to the temple with the big Buddha. I was too tired to walk another long distance, so I bought a ticket. The train wasn’t worth the price I paid. It only cosisted of two cars and was packed.

Anyway, yeah, I made it to the Buddha. For ¥20, I was allowed to go inside that thing. When I did, all I could think of was “I paid 20 for this?” Not exciting at all, but at least I can say that I was in the belly of a big Buddha. The big drawback of exploring on my own is that I can’t take pictures of myself readily. I think I tried to position myself somehow to get a shot of me and the Buddha but I failed. An older Japanese man saw my problem and asked if I wanted a picture. How nice! The picture he took was kind of crappy, but I didn’t want to bother him so I said “ii desu! arigatou gozaimasu!” Well, what else can you do?

Anyway, that was Kamakura. At this point, this is my last entry that will come from Tokyo. My flight back is tonight. However, I’ve still got some stories to tell, so that’s coming soon. I’ll be back in Toronto by the evening of the 5th.

Hope to see some of you soon!

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